Improving the advanced reading skills of secondary school 7th grade students: Implementation and evaluation

Reading skill is a skill acquired through education. While teaching reading skills, it is necessary to use multifaceted activities and practices that are carefully selected to address the variables inherent in the learning environment. Advanced reading activities and practices are one of them. Correct execution of the reading process and correct evaluation of the results of reading activities are closely related to advanced reading proficiency. While doing advanced readings, many metacognitive activities such as planning, goal setting, reviewing, evaluating foreknowledge, predicting, visualizing, establishing relationships, drawing conclusions, questioning, summarizing, synthesizing and evaluating are carried out. This study is considered important because it is thought that the study can provide information about the implementation of Turkish lessons in the context of developing advanced reading skills of 7th grade secondary school students; the activity and application examples in the study can provide ideas for new activities and applications, and the study can contribute to Turkish teachers, Turkish teaching and the literature. In this context, the purpose of the study is to address the study question: "What is the usability status of activities and applications designed to develop advanced reading skills of 7th grade secondary school students?" This study, which was conducted with an action research design, lasted a total of nine weeks (two weeks for pilot application, seven weeks for actual application). Throughout the study, a series of reading methods, techniques and strategies (Paired Reading, 3P, Story Map, Reading Circle, Gap Filling, Concept Maps and Graphic Organizers, Reading Theater, KWL, TİÖD, İTS, TELLS and TWA reading strategies) were used with the subject content. The study process was enriched by using Question-Answer, Self-Awareness, Discussion, Brainstorming, Cooperative Learning methods. The study group consists of 7th grade students registered in a public educational institution in the district Sinanpaşa of the province, Afyonkarahisar and whose academic success is below the expected norms. The data of the study were collected through researcher diaries, student diaries, semi-structured focus group interviews and classroom observations. The data obtained were subjected to content analysis. According to the results of the study; it was observed that the students who stated that they had difficulty in understanding what they read and could not use reading strategies before the study have had improvements in these problems at the end of the study. In addition, it has been concluded that students who have difficulty in actively participating in the teaching-learning processes are more willing to participate in these courses when they are taught with contemporary teaching methods and techniques.